Black or Mulatto? Two countries, two sides of the same coin/Negro ou Mulato? Dois países, duas faces da mesma moeda

Mulato do Gois 2009

Spirit of Black Men 2007, 2008, 2009

The promotion of the arrival of Carnaval season in Brazil illustrates the differences in racial classification in Brazil and the United States. On a webpage developed by Brazilian journalist Ancelmo Gois, Brazilians are asked to vote for various men representing Samba schools in the annual Carnaval progression. The title of the webpage is called “Mulato do Gois 2009“. In a perfect example of the way Brazil defines the black population, none of the men featured on this page are what most people would define as light-skinned. In the United States, when the term “mulatto” is used, the image for many people would be a person of mixed ancestry with light skin, wavy hair and light eye color. In Brazil, the men featured on this website could be classified as dark-skinned mulattos. This doesn’t necesarily mean that all mof these men define themselves as mulattos, but when the Brazilian census reports that 42% of Brazilians classify themselves as “mixed race”, the men featured on this website demonstrate the elasticity of terms like “mulatto”, “pardo” or “moreno” in Brazil.

In comparison, in the United States every year there is a calendar featuring black men produced by the Spirit of Black Men. These calendars usually feature black men of various skin tones who are all defined as black by American standards. The point here is that in Brazil, the term “mulatto” can include nearly the entire spectrum of people of African descent, from the lightest to the darkest, while in America, the term black includes all persons of African descent from the lightest to the darkest. I will elaborate more on this issue in my next post.